Sin & Punishment: Star Successor Developers Take Us Beyond The Stars

Sin & Punishment: Star Successor will finally land in North America next week. Before you pick it up, hear what Yurie Hattori, Supervisor at Nintendo, and Masato Maegawa, Producer at Treasure, have to say about designing the Wii shooter.

Can we start with the story of Sin & Punishment: Star Successor? What inspired the plot where an organization is chasing Kachi, who is called a monster with human skin, and what are the themes behind it?

At the core of the setting is the idea of Blood Infactor, which was commonly used in the Soldier series, a series of shoot-em-ups years ago.

The theme of Star Successor is the pursuit of “true humanity” by Isa, son of Airan and Saki, heroes of the first title, and Kachi, a mysterious girl who is called a monster with human skin.

Can you tell us about the evolution of Isa and Kachi? Did you explore any other looks, character types, or different styles before settling on the final design? Also, was it always the plan to have Isa be Airan and Saki’s son?

It’s already been discussed that Isa is son of Airan and Saki. Of course, we explored a number of other concepts before completing the final design, but when we finalized that players would fly in gameplay, our design became very close to the final one.

In the first game, the characters were stuck on the ground. In Sin & Punishment: Star Successor, Isa and Kachi can fly. Why did you add flight and how did it affect the design of Star Successor?

In the first title, as the character was focused on right-left movement and jumping, we faced a limit of the variety of action we could implement. In order to enhance the freedom of movement, we added the flying element. One other reason is the positive feedback we received for a level in the first title where players were fighting on the aircraft carrier in the sky. By adding the flying element, we were able to make the camera work larger-scaled and add graphical transitions to our stages.

One element I loved in Sin & Punishment and Sin & Punishment: Star Successor is how both games feel exciting from start to finish. When designing Star Successor, how did you create levels and boss fights that continually elevate the level of excitement without overwhelming players?

Treasure has always been focused on the layout of gameplay systems in stages and on the variety, hugeness, and amount of twists and bosses. For Sin & Punishment, we followed this concept and tried to create something that would never bore players. In order to make our gameplay systems enjoyable by different types of players for extended periods of time, we made lots of adjustments over the course of developing the game.

Sin & Punishment: Star Successor has some awesome enemies and boss fights. Where did you get ideas for the magma spewing turtle in stage one, chimera-like tiger in stage five, and the G5 members?

They were designed by our graphical designers and programmers. Every time, we focus these creations by understanding what creates enjoyable graphics and gameplay while keeping in mind the setting and storyline of the game.

Sin & Punishment had an epic and memorable last boss where players fought a planet. Can you discuss this and explain how you designed a final fight that would top that in Sin & Punishment: Star Successor?

We want our final bosses to be extreme, bizarre and unique. We are confident that we have realized the most concrete and easy to understand form of shoot-em-ups by focusing on the core concept of “evade and shoot,” while reminding players of the game’s storyline and background. Star Successor also has a full-scaled last boss battle which we feel is perfect for the end of the game. We hope you will play and experience it!

This is one of those few and rare times I’m glad I live in the PAL territory. Too bad for the rest of the 34205795439821 other cases where NTSC gets titles released way faster than us. Although….I still had to import from the UK (Australian).